Interdisciplinary variations of metadiscursive verb patterns in English research articles

Abstract

The widespread use of metadiscourse is vital to the study of academic discourse and genre analysis. This article focuses on the concept of metadiscursive verb patterns (MVPs) and examines their variation in English research articles across four domains representing hard/soft-pure and hard/soft-applied disciplines. Based on a bottom-up investigation of a self-compiled corpus, three findings are highlighted: (1) the crucial rhetorical roles of MVPs were established by their distinct functions in knowledge construction; (2) significant interdisciplinary variations of MVPs reflected the typical written conventions shared by writers of different disciplinary communities; and (3) the association between (sub-)categories of MVPs and disciplines foregrounded the most popular rhetorical strategies for using MVPs and salient disciplinary features. These findings are discussed in terms of the factors governing the use of MVPs and identification of disciplinary boundaries. Pedagogical considerations for understanding MVPs and proper rhetorical strategies for using these tools are discussed.